Addressing Employee Complaints

Whiny Employees: How To Handle Them

At some point in your career as a manager, you will undoubtedly have to deal with complaints from your direct reports. While it can be hard to know what to say to your staff, it's helpful to know that every manager has struggled with it. You aren't alone in wondering how to address your staff. The worst thing you can do, however, is nothing. If you don't show your staff you are concerned for their well-being, they will not respect your leadership. That's why it’s important to empathize with your staff when they complain. Even if the situation isn't going to change, it's important you show them that you hear their frustration, and can understand why they feel that way.

Addressing employee complaints with "Feel, Felt, Found"

One way to show empathy to your staff is to use the “Feel, Felt, Found” model. This model is used in many different ways in the business world, even as a popular sales technique. The reason it's so effective is that it shows the other person that you understand their objections, you can relate, but you also see a way to overcome the objection. It's as effective at “selling” your ideas to your staff as it is at selling products. Let's take a look at the model.

Feel Begin with empathy, telling the associate you understand how they feel.

Felt Relate a time somebody else has felt that way, either yourself or a third party Found Explain how the person in your example found out that circumstances weren't so bad, or could be overcome by looking at things in a different way.

Employee's frustration, manager's empathy

To demonstrate, we'll take a very simple example. Let's suppose one of your staff, Bill, is complaining that one of his coworkers, John, is completing work slowly, and Bill can't finish a report he needs until John finishes. You could respond: “Bill, I know how frustrated you must feel right now. I know I've felt frustrated when I'm slowed down by somebody else completing their work more slowly. What I've found in the past is peer feedback is helpful. Maybe John doesn't realize you need the numbers, why don't you remind how important it is? If the problem continues, let me know.”

In this example, we're assuming that John hasn't been a problem in the past. What we're addressing here is Bill's frustration, not John's work habits. If John actually is a slow worker, obviously you need to work with John. You also don't need to use the words "Feel, Felt, and Found." In fact, it's probably better if you don't — you're much better off speaking normally, rather than trying to follow the model too closely and sounding like a robot. If it feels like you're reading from a script, your employee will feel ignored and dismissed by you. Just move through the three steps of the model in order, and try to follow the intent of each step.

We've got more advice on addressing employee complaints after the jump...